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Spring Then and Now

“Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May/and summer’s lease hath all to short a date.” -Shakespeare, sonnet 18.

Spring meant lots of things when I was a little girl. Easter school holidays (hey, it was the 1950’s), were high on my list as I was not too keen on going to school! Then there was new “Easter” dresses, purses, hats and fancy shoes for my sister and I to wear to church. “Easter” dinner included the usual suspects of bake ham with pineapple rings, I know, I know… and baked sweet potatoes. One of the best things were the devilled eggs on their own blue, gold trimmed, devilled egg plate! Around this time our parents prepared the garden for the fantastic vegetables they grew every year. The cherry trees blooming in our backyard, which meant that in a few months we would be climbing up to the top and sitting on a branch eating cherries and Mom would actually make juice from the cherries for homemade popsicles! There were raspberry canes too with the promise of more popsicles. Dad would soon be digging up new potatoes to boil, served with globs of butter oozing all over them; sprinkled with some of the new chives. Does it get any better? These new potatoes meant saying goodbye, finally, to that huge 100 lb. bag of potatoes, (or at least it seemed like 100 hundred pounds) Dad bought every fall to be stored in the basement for winter meals. I am convinced that because my dad was Danish, we were obliged to eat potatoes for dinner every night. We even had mashed potatoes served alongside spaghetti and meatballs and cabbage rolls! Oh my God! After I left home, it took me a long time to be able to eat potatoes again but those little new potatoes won me back!

New traditions developed along the way and for me there are a few things that I just have to make, hot crossed buns to have on Easter morning, being one of them and devilled eggs topped with new chives, a bit of ham and some new crop French Breakfast radishes for Easter Sunday lunch too!

One thing that’s changed is my husband and I always make a nice dinner for “Easter Sunday”. Last year there was an asparagus pudding to start, followed by roast chicken, roasted fennel and some lemon curd tarts for a sweetie. Of course, a nice bottle of wine did not go amiss either!